


Spring

by ZoenOut



Category: The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Cold, Cold Weather, Comforting Miguel, First Meetings, Hurt Tulio, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death, New Year's Eve, sickfic kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoenOut/pseuds/ZoenOut
Summary: The 15-hundreds were a tough time. Both for Miguel and Tulio. They wouldn't have made it without each other, that's clear.
Relationships: Miguel/Tulio (Road to El Dorado)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Before you start reading, authors note! I thought the movie began 1509 and not 1519, I only realised I was wrong after the fanfic was complete. Please pretend that the movie starts 1509!

They both should’ve died a long time ago. Both Miguel and Tulio. There were so many close calls, there was sickness, injuries, starvation... They survived it all. Tulios first close call was when he was two years old. Whooping cough. He could barely breathe, couldn’t leave bed for weeks. After that there was the rusty nail, he’d stepped on it when he was six, it could’ve easily given him tetanus and killed him. He’d gotten high fever several times, all of them high enough to be able to cause death. There was a big cut he got a few years after the nail incident, if it’d gotten infected that could’ve been the end of Tulio. Then of course there was the lack of food, all through his childhood. All through Miguel’s as well. That could’ve been the end for either of them. 

Miguel had been luckier in terms of diseases, only one bad one as a child. One bad as an adolescent. The first one was worse than the second, high fever, he hadn’t been able to keep what little food he’d been given down. That was the worst of it, though. The worst of sickness. The food issue though, that one had hit hard. Miguel knew what it was like to go hungry, he knew all too well. That grumbling in your stomach slowly dissolving into a single continuous ache, an ache threatening to tear you apart. Then apathy. No energy to do anything, no wish to do anything either. When you finally got some food was even worse. You just wanted to eat and eat and eat, you could never be full enough. But you had to stop yourself. Otherwise it wouldn’t stay down and it would all be wasted. 

Willpower was something needed to survive. Miguel had somehow gotten it, gifted by the heavens. No matter how bad things got he still wanted to keep on going, to keep on living. That was how he’d made it. Willpower, maybe some luck here and there. Tulio had only relied on luck. It had worked most of the time, well, at least enough of the time. Luck and whit, that could have been Tulio’s motto. The man didn’t trust much other than whit and logic, in desperate times he had nothing but luck. Their respective strategies had kept them alive for long enough. When they converged it was as if they achieved immortality. 

***

It had been very cold the winter of 1499. Too cold. Many had died that year, few managed to crawl into the 15-hundreds with their life intact. It was New Year’s Eve. Cold. Too cold. No movement in the streets. One movement in the streets. Slow steps. One after another. A head of black hair bobbing up and down with each one. Up, down, up, down. A boy staggered through the streets. No one payed him much mind, anyone else on the street had better things to worry about, food, making it through the night. The streets were covered in frost, white, shimmering, cold. Step after step, one two, one two. The steps stopped. Someone leaned their tired body against a wall. They seemed to give up, they sighed and let themselves slide down the bricks. Tulio lay in a pitiful pile on the sidewalk. 

It’s an hour to twelve. There were rapid steps in an alley. Step, step, step, step. It’s too cold to stay still for long, Miguel told himself. Get up, move, move. Don’t let your toes and fingers freeze. Without toes and fingers work becomes more difficult, without toes and fingers earning money becomes even harder than it already is. He walked at a brisk pace back and fourth through the alley. His light hair bobbed back and fourth along his cheekbones. He stopped. Listened. Listened carefully, longer than usual. There it was again. A sob. Not very loud but unmistakably there. A hitching sob, a shaky intake of breath. Miguel picked up his thin blanket from the ground. Better than nothing. 

Tulio could barely feel his feet, he couldn’t feel his fingers. Something warm was running down his face. He hoped it was either tears or snot, if it was blood the situation would be worse. Even worse than it already was. If it was blood then he’d hurt himself somehow, that would give him trouble if he survived the night. It felt difficult to get breath, that made him even more panicked than before. Steps were coming towards him. He would’ve ran but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. It was as if he was frozen to the ground. Something covered his shoulders. Something soft. 

A boy was laying on the sidewalk. Miguel thought the boy to be a bit older than himself, if only by a few years. He stepped closer, tried to speak to the black haired boy. He got no reaction. Not a single word. The boy was alive for the time being, but he was cold, too cold. Miguel hastily threw his blanket over the shaking shoulders. 

He began by trying to warm up the hands. Those were most important for working. Even if you’d lost your legs you could always braid cords to sell, sew clothes, many other options. He worked quickly, rubbing the freezing hands between his own. They weren’t the typical workers hands, sure they’d worked, but they weren’t workers hands. These were slender, with long thin fingers. Not stubby and strong like Miguel’s, these were rather pretty. He wondered what’d landed this one on the streets. Perhaps he was just a bastard, born into a poor family, originating partially from a rich one. You could never know, the nobles were seldom as noble as they tried to be. Slowly the hands returned to a decent temperature. Now for the rest of the boy. Getting him to stand up and move seemed to be futile so Miguel would have to go for the next best thing. He tried to arrange the long limbs so as little skin as possible was touching the ground, carefully moving them joint by joint until he found a balanced position. He then got as close as possible and wrapped the blanket around both of them. Sharing the warmth would be best for both of them. The boy was heavy on his shoulder, although Miguel seemed to be the stronger of the two. Now it was just a question of will and patience. Wait out the night. Wait until the sun comes out. Just wait. 

Tulio opened his eyes. He was under a blanket. He was leaning against someone. It wasn’t as cold anymore. He lifted his head. A blond boy was next to him, he smiled. 

“Just in time,” he said and gestured towards the clock tower. “It’s just about to strike twelve.”

Tulio focused his gaze on the circular clock. The minute pointer moved one step. Dong! The bell began ringing. The blond boy smiled even wider and stood up. He turned to Tulio and reached down a hand. 

“Congratulations! You’ve made it into the 15-hundreds!” 

The boy shone like the sun, like this was the greatest occasion of his life. Tulio took his hand and before he knew it he was pulled to his feet. 

“Move,” said the blond boy, “you wouldn’t want to freeze to death so early in the century!”

The blond began to jump up and down, his straight hair bouncing at his shoulders. He smiled to himself as he propelled himself off the ground. Tulio did the same. Up, down, up, down. They’d jumped until they were both out of breath, when the blond reached out his hand again. Tulio took it.

“Miguel,” the boy said. 

“Tulio.” 

The boy called Miguel looked deep into Tulio’s eyes. Tulio was like captivated by that deep green shade, deep like the deepest well. 

“Congratulations,” said Miguel again. “The coldest night is over. You know, they say the coldest night comes right before the spring.”


End file.
